


Tea Between Storms

by GretchenSinister



Series: The Human Stories [2]
Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-03
Updated: 2019-04-03
Packaged: 2020-01-01 08:37:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18332507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: Original Prompt: "It seems like there’s nothing to really stop adults from believing in, and therefore seeing, the Guardians and other assorted spirits. I mean, they can’t see them in the first place, but there are plenty of times when a spirit affects the physical world (Jack making it snow indoors comes to mind), and there would or could be others around to explain the evidence. Yeah, they’re just kids, but when more kids than you can count on both hands separately say that the one making it snow indoors is Jack Frost, eventually at least one adult’s going to believe.So, hey, why not? Jamie, talking with Jack, points out this idea, and Jack brings it up to the other Guardians. Up to writer if they have a good reason why adults shouldn’t or can’t believe in spirits, but either way, Jack sets out to get the entire town of Burgess to believe in him and his friends.I’d like to see Jack’s efforts, and the responses to them.Bonuses:-there’s at least one person who doesn’t need convincing. Like, at all.-it’s an uphill battle a lot of the way...[cut for length]"Well, I got the “belief spreads beyond Burgess” bonus. One adult’s perspective on the change.





	Tea Between Storms

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr on 1/23/2015.

It started with Burgess. It started with the boy. Joan Pitzen’s half-smile settled into familiar lines as she fixed herself a cup of tea against the gathering chill outside. What, couldn’t she say his name, even in her head? He was one of the Guardians. He was one of the ones that protected people.   
  
But it was Jack Frost who had started the change, really started it, it wasn’t like anyone else could, and he wasn’t…  
  
Wasn’t what? Wasn’t safe. None of them who came with the change were  _safe_.   
  
But did that make it right for her to fear him? While her tea steeped, Joan walked through the rooms of her house, checking the salt lining the windows, the horseshoes over the doors. Well, it wasn’t that she feared Jack for what he would do. She feared him for what he didn’t understand. Or at least–what he seemed not to understand. Maybe there was a side of him that wasn’t the madcap, reckless, laughing boy that everyone saw. If that was his only side, he wouldn’t be protecting anyone, now would he?   
  
He’d just be another sprite, pulling children from their beds to dance in fairy rings until they collapsed from exhaustion, and not bringing them back home again.   
  
Joan added milk and sugar to her tea, and as she stirred the sugar in, she gazed out at the thin swirls of snow, thickening as she watched. At least it snowed more now, as much as it had when she had been a child, or more. She had checked the weather records. The return of cold was cause for celebration, as were the harvests that now always happened when they were supposed to, as long as certain rules were followed, with fewer lives lost each year as folks grew accustomed to the change.  
  
Where mermaids took the place of missing sharks, the ocean thrived.  
  
Joan noticed a few thin shapes in the snow out of the corner of her eyes. What were these? she wondered. When Burgess had been named as the center of the change, a lot of people had left, but a lot of people came, too. Burgess was now more diverse than it had ever been, both in terms of people and the beings they brought with them.   
  
Maybe that was why Burgess and the change seemed so dangerous, she thought, slowly turning away from the window, as if she had seen nothing, bowing her head slightly as she did. Folks didn’t know how to protect themselves against the things that came out of fairy tales they hadn’t been told as kids.  
  
_“Winter is coming,” said one of the ladies in Joan’s knitting group, one day. “have there been yuki-onna here yet? If not, I have some things to let you know.” And then she had smiled. “I know about Jack Frost, of course.”_  
  
Everyone smiled when they spoke about Jack Frost, even if it was his fault, even if it was Burgess’ fault the world was the way it was now. Even she had, even when she’d been wary of thinking his name a few minutes before.  
  
And so Joan smiled again. “To you, Jack Frost,” she said, raising her mug of tea to the air. The world had never been safe, after all, but now it was undeniably more wonderful. Even making sure to carry a bar of cold iron on her keychain now, she didn’t wish for the old world back again.   
  
_“Auntie Joan, Auntie Joan! Come and see, come and see!”_  
  
“Come and see what, Cayleigh?”  
  
“Jack Frost!”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments from Tumblr:
> 
> bowlingforgerbils said: I like Joan’s pragmatic approach to change. And the idea that spirits can bring good things, too.


End file.
